Israel, Zionists and
9/11 Truth

MUJCA was
inspired by a Christian theologian, David Griffin, and founded by Muslims,
Kevin Barrett and Faiz Khan. We have tried to reach out to Jews as well as
Christians and Muslims. And we have had some success, notably the inclusion
of essays by some of America’s leading Jewish intellectuals in
9/11 and American Empire v.2: Christians, Jews and Muslims Speak Out.

One of the
roadblocks to dialogue over 9/11 is the fact that Muslims and Jews generally
have very different views of the question of Palestine/Israel. While there
are a few anti-Zionist Jews and a few anti-Palestinian-Resistance
Muslims—alongside quite a few members of both groups who are not especially
passionate about the issue—most Jews support the Zionist takeover of
Palestine, while most Muslims support Palestinian resistance against that
takeover.

As an
American Muslim, I support the right of American Jews to lobby their
government in an attempt to influence its policies in a pro-Israeli
direction, and to exercise their freedom of speech on behalf of Zionism. But
I demand that American Jews, and other Americans, support the right of
American Muslims and other American anti-Zionists to lobby their government
in an attempt to change its policies in a pro-Palestinian direction. And
above all, I demand that all Americans respect the right of Muslims and
other anti-Zionists to exercise their freedom of speech on behalf of the
Palestinians. And that freedom of speech means very little unless it gets a
fair hearing in the mainstream American media.

I
understand why some American Jews are happy that they have been able to
influence the American taxpayer to foot the bill for Zionism to the tune of
somewhere between 100 billion and upwards of one trillion dollars. But at
the same time, those same American Jews should understand why millions of us
would be happy to see the American taxpayer shut off the spigot—or even
redirect the money and arms to the Palestinians. We believe that reparations
on the order of between 100 billion and upwards of one trillion dollars are
owed to the Palestinians by the US taxpayer, on top of the reparations (and
right of return) owed by Israel to the victims of its ethnic cleansings.

Furthermore, I demand that American anti-Zionists who support military
resistance against the Zionist occupation of Palestine be free to express
that support without being labeled “terrorist sympathizers.” Zionist Jews,
after all, are free to support the use of military force by the Zionist side
without being labeled “terrorists.” Pro-Zionists may think that threatened
or actual violence by the I.D.F. is legitimate military violence, while
violence by the Palestininians is “terrorism.” They have the right to think
that. But I happen to think the opposite—and I, too, have the right to my
own thoughts. For me, military force (i.e. violence with a political aim) is
legitimate when it is used to defend a community against outside aggression,
and illegitimate when it is used aggressively to invade another community or
steal that community’s resources. Under that definition, which happens to be
the one used in international law, the Israelis are the terrorists, while
Palestinian resistance fighters are legitimate soldiers and heroes.

We need
honest, compassionate dialogue on these issues. We need to recognize that
people on the other side of this debate are not monsters, but human beings
doing what comes naturally to human beings—trying to defend their own
communities.

But we do
need forthright debate, with both sides having their say—and that is what we
are not getting. Nowhere in the American media do we see the Muslim-majority
anti-Zionist position presented with balance or objectivity, much less
sympathy. Instead, Muslims are demonized, slandered by the “terrorism” blood
libel, and silenced, while virtually the entire corporate media marches in
pro-Zionist lockstep.

The
blackout on honest dialogue continues with the institutional blacklisting of
Mearsheimer and Walt’s critique of the Israeli lobby (see article below).

At least
that’s how it looks to me. But hey, I’m an Irish-American Muslim and
self-styled
truth jihadi. How does it look from where you’re sitting? I would love
to hear an eloquent, articulate response from someone with a different
perspective—the more different, the better. In particular, I would like to
hear from pro-Zionist or mixed-feelings American Jews who can thoughtfully
address these issues and their relation to the 9/11 truth movement.

“The
Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” is not even in bookstores, but
already anxieties have surfaced about the backlash it is stirring, with
several institutions backing away from holding events with the authors.

John J.
Mearsheimer, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, and Stephen
M. Walt, a professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard
University, were not totally surprised by the reaction to their work. An
article last spring in the London Review of Books outlining their argument -
that a powerful pro-Israel lobby has a pernicious influence on American
policy - set off a firestorm as charges of anti-Semitism, shoddy scholarship
and censorship ricocheted among prominent academics, writers, policymakers
and advocates. In the book, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux and
embargoed until Sept. 4, they elaborate on and update their case.

“Now that
the cold war is over, Israel has become a strategic liability for the United
States,” they write. “Yet no aspiring politician is going to say so in
public or even raise the possibility” because the pro-Israel lobby is so
powerful. They credit the lobby with shutting down talks with Syria and with
moderates in Iran, preventing the United States from condemning Israel’s
2006 war in Lebanon and with not pushing the Israelis hard enough to come to
an agreement with the Palestinians. They also discuss Christian Zionists and
the issue of dual loyalty.

Opponents
are prepared. Also being released on Sept. 4 is “The Deadliest Lies: The
Israel Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control” (Palgrave Macmillan) by
Abraham H. Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League. The
notion that pro-Israel groups “have anything like a uniform agenda, and that
U.S. policy on Israel and the Middle East is the result of their influence,
is simply wrong,” George P. Shultz, a former secretary of state, says in the
foreword. “This is a conspiracy theory pure and simple, and scholars at
great universities should be ashamed to promulgate it.”

The subject
will certainly prompt furious debate, though not at the Center for the
Humanities at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York, the
Chicago Council on Global Affairs, a Jewish cultural center in Washington
and three organizations in Chicago. They have all turned down or canceled
events with the authors, mentioning unease with the controversy or the
format.

The authors
were particularly disturbed by the Chicago council’s decision, since plans
for that event were complete and both authors have frequently spoken there
before. The two sent a four-page letter to 94 members of the council’s board
detailing what happened. “On July 24, Council President Marshall Bouton
phoned one of us (Mearsheimer) and informed him that he was canceling the
event,” and that his decision “was based on the need ‘to protect the
institution.’ He said that he had a serious ‘political problem,’ because
there were individuals who would be angry if he gave us a venue to speak,
and that this would have serious negative consequences for the council.
‘This one is so hot,’ Marshall maintained.”

Mr.
Mearsheimer later said of Mr. Bouton, “I had the sense that this phone call
pained him deeply.”

Mr. Bouton
was out of town, but Rachel Bronson, vice president for programs and studies
at the council, said, “Whenever we have topics that are particularly
controversial or sensitive, we try to make sure someone from another point
of view is there.” In this case, she said, there was not sufficient time to
set up that sort of panel before the council calendar went out. There are no
plans to have the authors speak at a later date, however.

“One of the
points we make in the book is that this is a subject that’s very hard to
talk about,” Mr. Walt said in an interview from his office in Cambridge.
“Organizations, no matter how strong their commitment to free speech, don’t
want to schedule something that’s likely to cause controversy.”

After the
cancellation Roberta Rubin, owner of the Book Stall, a store in Winnetka,
Ill., offered to help find a site for the authors. She said she tried a
Jewish community center and two large downtown clubs but they all told her
“they can’t afford to bring in somebody ‘too controversial.’ ” She added
that even she was concerned about inviting authors who might offend
customers.

Some of the
planned sites, like the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue, a cultural center in
Washington, would have been host of an event if Mr. Mearsheimer and Mr. Walt
appeared with opponents, said Esther Foer, the executive director.

Mr. Walt
said, “Part of the game is to portray us as so extreme that we have to be
balanced by someone from the ‘other side.’ ” Besides, he added, when you’re
promoting a book, you want to present your ideas without appearing with
someone who is trying to discredit you.

As for City
University, Aoibheann Sweeney, director of the Center for the Humanities,
said, “I looked at the introduction, and I didn’t feel that the book was
saying things differently enough” from the original article. Ms. Sweeney,
who said she had consulted with others at City University, acknowledged that
they had begun planning for an event in September moderated by J. J.
Goldberg, the editor of The Forward, a leading American Jewish weekly, but
once he chose not to participate, she decided to pass. Mr. Goldberg, who
was traveling in Israel, said in a telephone interview that “there should be
more of an open debate.” But appearing alone with the authors would have
given the impression that The Forward was presenting the event and thereby
endorsing the book, he said, and he did not want to do that. A discussion
with other speakers of differing views would have been different, he added.

“I don’t
think the book is very good,” said Mr. Goldberg, who said he read a copy of
the manuscript about six weeks ago. “They haven’t really done original
research. They haven’t talked to the people who are being lobbied or those
doing the lobbying.”

Overall Mr.
Mearsheimer said he thinks the response to their views will be “less
ferocious than last time, because it’s becoming increasingly difficult to
make the argument in a convincing way that anyone who criticizes the lobby
or Israel is an anti-Semite or a self-hating Jew.” Both Mr. Mearsheimer and
Mr. Walt pointed to the growing dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq,
criticism of Israel’s war in Lebanon and the publication of former President
Jimmy Carter’s book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” as making it
somewhat easier to criticize Israel openly.

“This isn’t
a cabal; this isn’t anything secretive,” Mr. Walt said.

American
Jews who lobby on Israel’s behalf are not all that different from the
National Rifle Association, the anti-tax movement, AARP or the American
Petroleum Institute, he said, “They just happen to be really good at it.”

“It’s the
way American politics work,” he continued. “Sometimes powerful interest
groups get what they want, and it’s not good for the country as a whole. I
would say that about the farm lobby and about the Cuba lobby.”

To the
authors, dual loyalty is as American as Presidents’ Day sales and “Law &
Order” reruns. As Mr. Mearsheimer explained: “People are allowed to have
multiple loyalties. They have religious loyalties, loyalty to family, to an
organization and you can have loyalty to other countries. Someone who is
Irish can have a loyalty to Ireland.”

“The
problem,” he said “is when you raise the subject of dual loyalty, many
people tend to think of it in the context of the old anti-Semitic canard and
making the argument that Jews are disloyal to the U.S.”

In print
and in interviews both authors have stressed that they hold no animus
towards Israel or Jews. “We think Israeli policy is fundamentally flawed,”
Mr. Mearsheimer said, “just as we think American policy is fundamentally
flawed.”

Copyright
2007 The New York Times

Please
Support MUJCA-NET MUJCA-NET needs your support. We are a
non-profit organization and the scale of our activities depends
entirely on your generosity. We would like to get copies of David
Griffin's two 9/11 books (see above) into the hands of every
religious leader in America. And we would like to push 9/11 truth
onto the front pages of every newspaper in America. But we can't do
it without your help. If you would like to donate to MUJCA-NET,
click here.